


Hold

by Kivea



Category: South Park
Genre: 'angst' more like someone cries a bit, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Bottling Up, Friendship, Light Angst, M/M, but like not really cause I'm awful at angst, let people process feelings in a healthy way, teenage problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 20:12:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18835927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kivea/pseuds/Kivea
Summary: The day that Kyle Broflovski's life fell apart around him, Craig was there to witness it. He was also there to witness the guy come back into school all week acting like nothing was wrong. But there was something wrong, and Craig wasn't going to let him pretend otherwise.He'd be there to witness the fallout too, only this time he'd do something about it.





	Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4: Angst! 
> 
> I'm not an angst writer. I do comedy. And trashy fics. I'm still proud for trying but don't expect to have your heart ripped out your chest.

Craig saw it, the day it all happened. It was through accident, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Principle’s door was open and he had been sent to her office to see her about some dumb firework that he definitely  _did not_ plan on setting off at school, and he did what any young teen would do in his situation: he put his ear to the door and listened.  

Gerald Broflovski had got in a car crash on his way home from work. He was at the hospital in intensive care, waiting for a blood transfusion. He listened to the Principle share the grave news before explaining that his mother was at the hospital now, and that she could ring him a taxi to either take him home or he could stay in her office until his mother was free to come get him. 

He declined, explaining he’d rather walk home. He rushed from the office quicker than Craig moved away. They bumped into each other, Kyle looking up at him with glossy eyes. He spent a few second holding that eye contact without blinking.  

Kyle shoved past him. Craig called out to him as he noticed papers fall from his bag, reaching down to pick them up and hand them to him and –  

A large red D grade, and a warning to pick up the slack or fail the class.  

“ _Thanks_ ,” Kyle hissed as he snatched the paper from Craig’s hand.  

“I didn’t mean to-!”  

“Fuck  _off_.”  

Kyle was gone in a flurry of anger and sadness. Craig shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to be a little peeved about the burn from the redhead’s anger.  

He tried to put it to the back of his mind, getting through his meeting with the principle and explaining the fireworks were for  _after_ school, not during. She still wasn’t impressed.  

It wasn’t until lunch that he thought about it again, sitting down at the table as Clyde came crashing down and addressed the group at large with: “Did you hear what happened with Kyle?!”  

Before he could even comment, Stan looked up and answered first.  

“Him and Lola? Who _hasn’t_ heard.”  

“I haven’t.”  

The table turned to him in silence. His interest was out of the blue. He felt himself flush.  

“I haven’t heard what happened. With him and Lola.”  

“She dumped him,” Clyde explained. “This morning, before school started. Via text.”  

“She didn’t even come in to say anything, she’s just stayed at home. Fucking coward,” Stan muttered under his breath. “I told him not to date her. He always picks crazy girls.”  

“Is he okay?”  

They turned to stare at him again. He powered through it.  

“Has anyone spoken to him about it?”  

Stan pulled a face. “Kyle’s pretty vocal. If he wanted to talk about it, he would.”  

And, as the authority on all things Kyle, Stan’s words were law and that was all that was said.  

\-- 

Craig didn’t expect to see Kyle the next day. He thought about just sending a casual text, like friends do for friends, but Stan’s words echoed in his head. And all the shit that had happened, some of which he wasn’t supposed to know, seemed like the kind of shit he’d talk to his best friends about, not Craig. So he didn’t say anything. Just wrote it off as an unfortunate day that the redhead would hopefully recover from.  

Except Craig did see him. Because he  _came to school_.  

He sat at their lunch table, chattering away with Clyde and Stan, like nothing had happened. Usual smile on his face as he laughed at something one of the others had said.  

Craig wasn’t known for being subtle. Today was no exception.  

“What are you  _doing_ here?”  

They stopped and stared at him. Clyde and Stan were looking a little concerned.  

Kyle raised a brow. “Having lunch?”  

“I mean at school. Shouldn’t you be – at home or something?”  

“Why, cause Lola broke up with me? It was a long time coming, dude. She did me a favour.”  

There was so much he wanted to say. He wanted to ask how his dad was, if he’d been to the hospital, why he was failing history. If there was anything he could do to help. But the look on Kyle’s face was so flippant, like Craig was being ridiculous at his suggestion. Before Craig could figure out how to respond Kyle had already reengaged Clyde in conversation.  

Stan nudged him once he’d sat down and spoke in a low voice as he asked: “Are you alright, dude?”  

“Is  _he_?”  

“He’ll be fine. I spoke to him, it’s no big deal. He sounded kinda relieved.”  

Relieved?  

_Relieved?!_

Craig reigned back his frustration and turned to his lunch instead, wondering if the day before had been a dream. No way could Kyle of all people be this calm and collected about the events that had transpired the day before. Kyle, the hothead of the group. The one who always had something to say. The one who Craig always thought allowed his emotions to rule him too much.  

He always thought their whole group allowed their emotions to rule them too much. Yet…  

Here Kyle was, at lunch, laughing away at Clyde’s dumb jokes, as if the day before his world hadn’t crumbled around him.  

They finished lunch like normal but when it was time for them to go outside and let out some energy, Kyle declined the suggestion they go terrorise some younger students. He explained he had to go to the library to pick up some books.  

Craig almost offered to go with him, but had no excuse. Why would he go? To keep Kyle company? It was clear the boy was capable of keeping himself sewn together on his own, if Stan’s blaze attitude was any indication. So instead he said nothing and followed Stan and Clyde out, their terrorising stopping short when they passed Bebe and Wendy who had their lunch break at the same time, and were too much of a distraction for the other two. Craig wished he had gone with Kyle just to avoid this.  

“I heard you were all worried about Kyle after Lola dumped him,” Wendy pressed with a soft smile. “I’m sure he appreciates your concern.”  

“How do you know that?” Craig questioned. “It’s been, like, a day.”  

“Word travels fast.”  

Clearly prying into Kyle’s business was going to be more trouble than it was worth if it was going to cause rumours. The last thing the redhead needed was even more stress on top of the rest of his shit.  

\-- 

Four days later, and it was now common knowledge that Gerald Broflovski was in hospital recovering from emergency care, due to return home any day. People had started to show more of an interest in Kyle’s wellbeing with it, asking if he was doing okay, if he didn’t need to take time off. 

“If anything I’d rather he stayed there till he was well enough to work. Now he’s just gonna be at home all the time, getting on my ass about college.”  

The joke was mirthful enough that it threw everyone off the trail, but it just made Craig remember the large red D etched onto the homework that had been dropped in his rush to leave the principle’s office. Craig couldn’t help wonder if that was going to be the boiling point.  

But still, nothing changed. Kyle went about his day like normal. Acted like normal. Joked like normal. Argued like normal. It was so  _normal_ that it was unsettling and wildly frustrating to watch, making Craig want to tear his hair out.  

He nearly did tear his hair out. Instead, he made the terrible mistake of opening his fucking mouth.  

They were sat at lunch, and he was chattering away to Stan about something inconsequential, laughing and joking _like normal_ , and then he said the words that made Craig crack:  

“Nah, I’ve got time to hang out tonight, if you need the company.”  

Stan wanted company because his mother would be out with her friends, and without her there his dad would drink with no one to rein him in and get him to bed. But Kyle just kept pushing, kept on like nothing was weird, like he had all the time in the world.  

“I’m surprised you’re not buried deep in a book,” Craig drawled out, eyes pinned to the redhead. “I thought we had homework. History.”  

Something icy passed over Kyle’s face, somewhere between anger and fear. “I can do my homework at Stan’s house. What, you never do your homework with friends?”  

“Not well, no. Some subjects I just gotta concentrate for.”  

The ice melted into a boiling heat. “Thanks for your input,  _Craig_ , but I’ll be  _fine_.”  

“Whatever you say.”  

“What’s it to you, anyway?!”  

He glanced up to see the anger. Normal anger. “Just being a concerned friend. That’s what I’m meant to do, right? Check you’re not stretching yourself too thin.”  

“Uh, Craig?” Clyde’s wavering voice spoke up from his side, trying to break the staring contest between the two boys. “You’re being weird.”  

Kyle had more he wanted to say. “You’ve been on my case all week, I don’t know why you won’t just back off.”  

“He’s the weird one,” Craig insisted. “I don’t know why you’re so insistent that you’re fine –  _no one_ would be fine!”  

There was a crack in his armour. Craig loosened his grip on the edge of the table, not having realised that he was practically raising from his seat until the shift in Kyle’s expression. The anger was still there, but there was a glisten to his eyes that was telling to how he really felt. He thought Kyle might finally let go.  

But he didn’t. He stood up without another word, leaving his tray on the table and grabbing his bag before storming off out the doors.  

Stan shot Craig a nasty glare and a scathing remark that he didn’t care about before following his Super Best Friend from the cafeteria, leaving his own tray on the table as well. The boys left were all looking at Craig, waiting for some kind of reaction.  

He picked up his fork and continued eating his lunch.  

“Craig, seriously though, what the fuck?” Clyde insisted. “You’ve been weird about Kyle for ages now. What gives?”  

“None of your business.”  

“Uh, if you’re gonna make a scene at lunch, it kind of is?”  

“Just drop it, alright?!” Craig scolded himself for raising his voice. “It’s…it doesn’t matter.”  

“If I know Kyle half as well as I think I do, you might wanna apologise. Though…maybe not in front of the whole cafeteria, yeah?”  

He looked over to Kenny, who was ever calm on the opposite side of the table. There was a crease in his brow that told Craig that yes, he was pissed off about it. But at least cool enough he could give some advice.  

Craig didn’t comment on it. He let Clyde sweep the blonde up in a conversation about sports and kept eating his lunch.  

He thought about the glistening eyes. He honestly…felt kind of bad about it.  

\-- 

Getting Kyle on his own proved to be difficult. It was almost like the redhead was avoiding him.  

When he asked Wendy, who seemed to know everything no matter how obscure, she confirmed that yes, he was avoiding Craig. And no, she wasn’t going to get involved.  

“You get involved in everything! You’re like – some dumb meddler!”  

She raised a brow at the comparison. “Thanks for the compliment, but no, I don’t. Also I don’t really want you to apologise to him. The last thing he needs is another Eric Cartman poking and prodding him every five minutes.”  

It was a low blow, but maybe not totally undeserved.  

Instead he went about his day trying to contrive ways to get the redhead on his own, yet he came up blank. He tried to corner him after school, but Bebe distracted him with some conversation about a new video game she wanted people to get with her. Once he’d caught the flash of green and red leaving she was gone with a bright smile and a ‘great talk’, and he realised he’d been set up.  

He was going to need to be sneakier than the sneaky asshole if he wanted to get him on his own, clearly. But that was okay. Craig knew where to find Kyle. He’d play the long game.  

The long game involved a pretty awkward conversation with his mother to find out what time Sharon Marsh would be going out that night, and then proceeding to sit on the doorstep to the Marsh household in the cold waiting for Kyle to make an appearance.  

It gave him enough time on his own on his phone to question why he even cared. He never found the answer.  

“What are you doing here?”  

He looked up from his phone, seeing the other boy standing half way down the path, his green, sleeveless puffer jacket wrapped round his shoulders. Craig stuffed his phone in his pocket as he stood up and stepped down from the porch, though he didn’t make an effort to close the gap. He felt like he wasn’t allowed.  

“Wendy said you were avoiding me.”  

“So you decided to stalk me?”  

He flushed at the accusation and felt pleased that it was dark out. “No, that’s – I’m not  _stalking_ you.”  

“Oh really? How long have you been sat there?”  

“Long enough – look that’s not what I’m here for!”  

“What, you’re  _not_ here to stalk me?”  

He let out a growl of frustration. “No, asshole, I’m here to apologise!”  

Kyle didn’t respond. In what little light the street lamps were giving off, he could see the brown eyes had blown wide.  

“I was out of line at lunch today. I was being a dick, and I’m sorry. I’ve been a dick all week. And I’m sorry.”  

“Why?”  

“Because I feel guilty about it?”  

An eye roll and a small smile. “No, douche, why have you been a dick?”  

He felt his stomach churn in protest as heat began to rise to his cheeks. It was the question he still couldn’t answer. “I dunno.”  

“Craig.”  

He looked up, meeting the brown eyes that were flickering about as they searched his face.  

“C’mon, dude. You can tell me.”  

“It’s just-!” he tried to keep himself steady. “I was there, when she told you about your dad, and your history mark, and then  _Lola_ , and…you just keep coming into school, acting normal?”  

“Isn’t it a good thing? That I’m not upset? Do you want me to be upset?”  

“Yes!” he admitted. “I do! There’s no way you’re not phased by all this!”  

“Look, dad’s…incident, it’s really not that bad, I trust the hospital to do their best and get him back to health, and the mark? It’s just  _history_ , it’s not a big deal, everyone gets one bad grade, right? Lola and I were falling apart anyway so is it really…does it really matter?”  

“You keep reasoning out all these things, you’re allowed to feel emotions about them.”  

“I think I’m a little more familiar with ‘feeling emotions’ than you are,” Kyle gave a tight smile that didn’t really reach his eyes. “I’m fine. Really.”  

“You don’t have to be. You’re allowed to just…be weak.”  

 “Thanks for your permission, that’s exactly what I’d been waiting for.”  

“Don’t be a jackass, you know what I mean!” Craig’s voice rose with his irritation. “I don’t know if you’ve talked to Stan already or what, but…”  

Kyle’s tight smile had dropped. His eyes were growing wider, looking up and waiting for something to be said. His knuckles a little whiter. His teeth chewing on his bottom lip.  

“But I’m here if you need someone. Even if you just wanna sit around and mope or some shit. You can mope with me. You don’t have to be fine.”  

The twitch of a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I guess you know how to mope with that miserable look on your face all the time.”  

Craig shoved him in the arm. “I’m trying to be nice, dickmunch.”  

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. But he got it.  

Kyle’s arms wrapped around his waist and his head slumped against his collarbone in defeat. It was an awkward hug, there was still distance between them because of the angle of Kyle’s back, but Craig powered through it. He wrapped his own arms around Kyle and pulled him closer as he tried to remember all the things he does for Clyde when the boy’s crying. Just in a less patronising way.  

He didn’t cry, at first. He just stood there, leaning on Craig and holding him – tightly. He didn’t try to pry for any information or a conversation to fill the silence. He just let it happen.  

Eventually the crying did start. The pair crumpled onto the floor without letting go of the other as the sobs wrecked Kyle’s body and Craig’s hold on him tightened further. He felt the legs of his jeans soaking up the snow on the ground below and did his best to ignore it. He probably had a wet ass anyway from sitting on the Marsh’s front step all night. What did it matter about his knees?  

He didn’t know how long they were like that for. He held Kyle just as tightly as Kyle was holding him, occasionally rubbing circles on his back as the crying went on.  

“My dad…” Kyle gasped out between sobs. “I was so scared. I was  _so scared_.”  

His own voice was scratchy and weak when he spoke. “Was it bad? The crash?”  

“It was worse.”  

Eventually the sobbing stopped. They were still on their knees, Kyle practically in his lap with his face buried in the hood of his jacket. He didn’t dare let go. He wanted to wrap him up and keep him safe. Stop anything or anyone else from trying to pull the redhead’s heart to pieces.  

“Stan’s watching us.”  

Craig forced himself not to pull away. He felt Kyle chuckling against his chest.  

“Not embarrassed, are you?”  

“Not at all. You?”  

“A bit,” Kyle confessed, speaking into the air as he turned his head away from Craig’s neck. “But I don’t really care enough to move.”  

“I think my butt cares,” Craig admitted. “And my legs. I can’t feel them.”  

Kyle hurried to pull himself back and apologise, ending up sitting in the snow opposite him. His cheeks were red, puffy from the tears, eyes bloodshot despite the smile on his face. At least it seemed a little more genuine this time.  

“Do…you feel better?”  

“A bit,” he admitted again. “Thanks, Craig. Really. I think I needed this.”  

“No problem.”  

“I’m gonna head inside. Maybe talk to Stan. That’s what you’re meant to do when shit happens, right? Talk to your friends?”  

“Yeah, right. Sure.”  

The pair stood, standing face to face without moving.  

“I should go,” Craig gestured off to the street, unsure where he was pointing to. “I have…stuff. To do.”  

“Right, yeah, same. Stan’s waiting for me.”  

Craig turned to see that Stan was, indeed, at the living room window, phone to his ear as he talked to someone. Craig’s brow furrowed and he asked: “Is he gossiping about us?”  

“Probably.”  

“I swear to fuck if Wendy comes to me already knowing something I’ve done again-!”  

“It’s probably Kenny. Who…probably is the one who tells Wendy.”  

“Fuck’s sake.”  

Kyle punched him in the arm lightly, bringing his attention back round. “Seriously, dude. Thanks.”  

“Stop thanking me and go inside,” Craig snapped back as embarrassment began to rise. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”  

“Weren’t you telling me I was allowed to have feelings and emotions?” Kyle teased. “Let me feel all this gratitude for you, Craig, don’t make me bottle it up!”  

He stumbled back to get away from the flailing arms threatening him with more hugs, reaching up to push back against the attacker. They stopped when Kyle’s phone chimed away in his pocket. Enough to snap them out of whatever moment they were having.  

“I’m going to leave, before this gets more cringe-y,” Craig declared. “You go talk to your best friend or whatever. I’m going to go home and pretend this never happened.”  

“Sure. See you later.”  

“Later.”  

He was quick to leave the prying eyes of Stan, ditching Kyle on the driveway without a second thought. Once he’d started down the road his heart wouldn’t stop racing, cheeks flushed at the lingering feeling of a warm body wrapped close to his own. Or perhaps it was because of who it was. 

It wasn’t until he lay down on his bed that he let himself consider the possibility of why he was so obsessed with making sure Kyle was okay. There was no happy warmth about the realisation. Nothing but fear of what the next day at school would bring. Fear of what the likes of Wendy Testaburger would find out about it all.  

Fear over what kind of rumours it would start. Fuck, he always hated the rumours about  _his_ feelings towards other people. It was like some weird fixation the whole school would get in on.  

But at least Kyle had admitted he wasn’t okay. At least he’d let some of his feelings out, maybe spoken to Stan about it all.  

He would deal with whatever they threw at him. At least he got what he wanted. Hopefully it was worth it.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> My one for tomorrow is not finished. It's like half done, and unfortunately I'm booked in for sewing time for the next day and a bit, so I don't know if I'll get it totally finished. If I don't, I'll upload the beginning, and finish it as a chapter fic after the week is over.


End file.
